by Paula Byrne
But it was not simply Billy’s faith that was a problem. The rest of the Kennedy family had not warmed to him. He did not seem to be the right sort of personality for the gregarious, spirited Kick. Marie Bruce tried to assuage Rose’s doubts, telling her that Rose had known Billy only when he was still a boy without responsibility. She explained that English men developed later than others, and that Billy’s war experiences had made him into a man. She also told Rose that he loved ‘little Kick’ very much. Marie pleaded with her friend to accept the marriage. She told her that Kick was loved by Billy’s family and liked English life. When she finally arrived at the sticking point, religion, she said that Kick feared greatly her mother’s disapproval. ‘If you could only see them together,’ she urged her friend. She tried to convince Rose that a loophole could be found. Marie Bruce made her biggest mistake when she mentioned that she herself had been married by a Russian minister, so was in the eyes of the church ‘happily living in sin’. This well-meant remark could only have reminded Rose that in the eyes of the Roman Catholic Church her daughter would, indeed, be living in sin. She was furious and felt that Kick was being badly advised.
In the meantime, Rose’s secretary wrote to Kick, sending presents of clothes, including a beautiful silk dress and a pink bed jacket from her mother. Although there was not a single mention of Billy, Rose’s secretary passed on a message that Kick should improve her grammar when writing home, telling her that her mother ‘would also like you to watch the prepositions and pronouns . . . whom is in the objective case and as such is principally used as the object of a preposition’.19 Usually the Kennedy children made a joke of their mother’s obsession with grammar, but this was not the time or the place.
Kick loved Billy. And she loved his deep, abiding love for her. She had fallen in love with England, and Billy was the embodiment of that love. The fact that British and American forces were massing in southern England in preparation for the opening of the Second Front, the Normandy landings, where casualties were expected to be high, meant that she was under extra pressure. She had to fulfil her destiny.
She now tried Bishop David Mathew, the Roman Catholic Auxiliary Bishop of Westminster, and a friend of Father D’Arcy. He was frank about her options: ‘He had nothing to offer me as a possible solution and went so far as to say that in a case like this the Church would have to be very careful so as to avoid all criticism.’20 At an inopportune moment, she discovered a newspaper article by the Archbishop of York which said that ‘any Anglican who gave in to the Roman Catholic Church at marriage was guilty of great weakness’. She assumed that ‘He must have got wind of something.’ There was no doubt that the possibility of an impending union between Billy and Kick was big news in the Church of England.
That January, Billy’s father, mother and sisters helped him with his campaign to persuade Kick to accept his proposal. His sisters recalled gifts of jewels and other lavish presents. The Duke gave her pearl and diamond earrings to match a diamond cross given by the Duchess. She was invited to parties to meet fascinating family members, such as Lord David Cecil, one of Jack’s heroes.21 So much would be hers, if she would only renounce her faith. But Kick was still thinking through her decision.
39
Rosemary Tonks
She was a more effective envoy to the people of Britain from the people of America than her father, our pre-war Ambassador.
Unidentified newspaper clipping in Rose Kennedy Papers
There was a brief hiatus from the marriage dilemma, as Billy had taken leave from the army to stand for Parliament in the West Derbyshire by-election. He was to fight for a seat that had been in his family for over two centuries. He was obliged to request leave from the regiment. This troubled him, at such a key time in the war. According to some, he didn’t want to stand for Parliament at all. There were whispers that it was at his father’s insistence. A family friend remembered: ‘He never should have come back. He should have stayed with his Regiment. He was just too nice.’1 Likewise, Andrew, Billy’s brother, thought the by-election ‘a grave error of judgment on my father’s part’. Billy may also have been persuaded to run because he knew that Kick would be impressed to see a different side to him.
By 6 February, she had made up her mind. She wrote to Inga Arvad to tell her that she had decided to ‘marry an Englishman and if it wasn’t for this religious difficulty I’d be married to him now’. She told Inga, ‘Yes, it’s the same one as before. He’s standing for Parliament at the moment so there’s lots of excitement about whether he’ll get in.’2
Kick took part in the last few days of the campaign, using up her precious leave to be at Billy’s side. She wrote an excited round-robin letter to her family with details of the election. On 12 February, she left London for York, and was met at the station by Richard Wood, who was still in love with her. She told her family that he had new wooden legs and was able to drive, though he still found it difficult to walk. ‘But he’ll do it sooner or later,’ she wrote loyally.3 Kick probed Richard about his own family’s relationship to the tenants on their estates. She was curious about everything and Richard felt that she was weighing up her future as the Duchess of Devonshire: ‘All this interested Kick very much indeed in that she was going to be in a position one day of great authority and responsibility for masses of people who lived at Chatsworth.’4
She stayed with Richard’s sister, Anne, for a few days in the Yorkshire Dales, and was spoilt by her, having breakfast in bed every morning, though Kick suffered from the inclement weather: ‘I have never felt such cold.’5 From there she went to Derbyshire to meet with Billy on the campaign trail. They agreed that it would look bad for Billy if appeaser Joe Kennedy’s daughter were to be publicly connected to him (‘news of me wouldn’t add any votes’, she told her father), so they gave her a pseudonym, ‘Rosemary Tonks’, the village girl. She told her family that she ‘wasn’t allowed to open my mouth, although I did go canvassing for votes with Billy’s sister’.
It was very much a family affair, with Billy’s mother the Duchess speaking on five different hustings. Kick thought she was absolutely wonderful up there on the platform. She was imagining herself in the role. Billy was worked off his feet, and in one evening he had to speak in six towns. Kick sat in the back of the car to hear the comments from the crowd. Billy, she reported, ‘was asked every sort of question from the Beveridge [social welfare] plan right on down to “Why isn’t the park at Chatsworth ploughed up,” “Why didn’t your father pay more death duties? What do you know about being poor?”’6 He was also attacked for his relationship with the Mosleys, who had recently been released from prison (they had been interned as Fascists) but remained under house arrest. Billy calmly replied that he and his brother and his brother’s wife were all ‘violently anti-Fascist’.
The Duchess later told Jack Kennedy that the 1944 by-election was ‘the worst & dirtiest fight I ever came across in all the 9 or 10 elections I have fought’. She was proud of Billy, who endured the heckling and remained perfectly calm. His mother felt that towards the end his performance improved considerably.7 Having Kick beside him gave him great confidence. She helped him by handing out leaflets saying ‘A Vote for Hartington is a Vote for Churchill’.8
Kick thought his speeches ‘absolutely terrific’, though she was angry if a member of the public asked him a question he couldn’t fully answer. She explained to her family: ‘Billy has been in the Army for the last four years and hasn’t had much chance to keep up on every political bill that has passed the House of Commons.’ Loyally, she went on, ‘He did awfully well. He had everything against him, every vote he got, he got despite who he was, not because.’9
Churchill wrote a public letter of support, which backfired because it only drew attention to Billy’s aristocratic pedigree and connections. According to Kick, the Duke ‘pulled a few fast ones which made every one rather mad’ (quite what he did is not clear). Kick concluded that Billy’s ‘own personal charm was the only thing he had in
his favour.’10 Billy was so handsome, so elegant with the press. His ‘bobby-dazzler’ of a smile helped: the press joked he and Kick could make his fortune in Hollywood if his career in politics failed.11
Kick loathed his opponent, the socialist Charlie White: ‘He hates the Cavendishes like poison . . . looks absolutely repulsive.’12 She resented the way he was turning the campaign into a class war. He was the ‘cobbler’s son’, the voice of the working man. White got his boys to boo and hiss and stamp on the floor when Billy made his speeches. Billy just spoke louder.
In Kick’s view, the people running White’s campaign ‘know just what the working people want to hear and they give it to them’. Billy never really stood a chance. He represented a hierarchical class of wealth and privilege that no longer had the upper hand and that the war had shown to be redundant. Kick noted: ‘There is no doubt about it, there is a terrific swing to the Left.’
On polling day she rode around with Billy to the various polling booths, and then on to Matlock Town Hall for the counting of the ballot. The Duchess was relieved that the campaign was over, and was amused when Billy said, ‘It’s a pity we are not just starting, isn’t it?’13 When the votes were finally counted, White had won, with over 16,000 votes to Billy’s 11,775. The socialist victory in this by-election was an augury of what was to come in the 1945 general election at the end of the war.14 Kick was upset that ‘poor Billy had to walk around looking cheerful and not too disappointed’.
Although Billy had lost the election, Kick loved her involvement in the world of politics. She was Joe’s daughter and the Mayor of Boston’s granddaughter: politics made her feel alive and invigorated. Her time in Washington with Jack had sharpened her mind and her intellectual appetite. The long talks through the campaign evenings had now stimulated her even more: ‘We all used to sit up far into the night discussing trends, elections and the world in general. I just sat and listened and thought how lucky I was to be there.’ She told her family that she’d never spent such an interesting week in her whole life. It was her political epiphany, as her mother had had her religious epiphany all those years ago: ‘That’s really the way I like to spend my time.’
And she saw Billy in a new light. White had repeatedly tried to humiliate him and present him as a spoiled, out-of-touch aristocrat. ‘Can you milk a cow?’ one of his supporters shouted. Billy calmly responded, ‘Yes I can milk a cow, and I can also spread muck. Some of my opponents seem rather good at that too.’15 Kick loved his witty response, which made him seem a little like Jack. Billy challenged White to a competition on a local farm to see who could rake the most muck. White, at age sixty-three to Billy’s twenty-six, refused the challenge.
Kick saw how fired up Billy had been by the campaign. She was proud of him, saying ‘Better luck next time.’ She saw herself as the new Georgiana, canvassing by Billy’s side. She loved it when his mother made a reference to Georgiana and her campaigning on behalf of Charles James Fox in the key Westminster constituency in the famous 1784 general election: ‘Duchesses’ kisses are not what they used to be.’16
Kick told her family that Billy didn’t really mind losing, though he was surprised by White’s victory. She knew that what he most wanted was to go back to the army. But what really stung Billy to the core were assaults on his courage. One woman had yelled at him: ‘Young man, you ought to be in the front line, not standing here talking politics.’ He tried not to show how much this got to him: ‘I’ve been in the army five years and have seen action overseas. I hope to take my place in the front line shortly.’17
The Duke was mortified by the result. According to Kick, ‘he kept saying “I don’t know what the people want”’. Billy replied, ‘I do, they just don’t want the Cavendishes.’ His father was shocked to hear Billy speaking in this way. When Billy gave his speech at the declaration of the result, he told of his intentions to go back to his men: ‘It has been a fierce fight. Now I am going to fight for you at the front, perhaps die, for my country.’
One woman remarked to Debo Cavendish, ‘It’s a shame to let him go, a great tall man like he is, he’s such a target.’18 Kick wrote to her family of her fears about the war as it began to reach its final stages: ‘We’ve been so lucky so far that it scares me.’19
40
Agnes and Hartie
This situation, Daddy, is a stickler.
Kick Kennedy
Billy returned to his regiment and was stationed at Alton in southern England, so Kick and her friends gathered together for weekends at Pat Wilson’s cottage in the grounds of nearby Cradstock Farm, which they christened ‘Crash Bang’. Kick would dash into the cottage and run upstairs to shower and wash her hair free of the doughnut grease of the canteen. Everyone would bring a treat, such as eggs or chocolate. There would be chat, fun and games.
Joe’s affair with Pat had intensified, though she was still married. It was Inga and Jack all over again, but worse because Pat had three small children. This was the time when Kick and Joe grew even closer together, and she was able to confide in him about her feelings for Billy, and her concerns about Rose. ‘Never did anyone have such a pillar of strength,’ she later wrote.1
Joe was feeling the strain of living in the shadow of Jack’s success. Jack was not only a bestselling author, but he had brought glory on the Kennedy name by becoming a war hero. Joe Jr and Jack, so close in age, had always experienced sibling rivalry, but he had been the first-born, his father’s favourite. Now, in Kick’s hour of need, he took on the role of father figure. The ex-Ambassador wrote to his eldest son: ‘I do hope you’ll give her the benefit of your counsel and sympathy because after all she has done a swell job and she’s entitled to the best . . . as far as I am personally concerned, Kick can do no wrong and whatever she did would be great with me.’2
To her, Joe Sr wrote, ‘As far as I am concerned I’ll gamble with your judgment. The best is none too good for you, baby, but if you decided it’s a Chinaman, it’s okay with me. That’s how much I think of you.’3 Rose said nothing.
Kick was impressed that when fastidious Billy visited her at Hans Crescent, he would happily sleep on the floor just to be close to her. When Kick stayed with Fiona and Arthur (Boofy) Gore in their tiny, cramped house, she would sleep in the bathtub (‘more like a bed’) and Billy would turn up, sleeping bag in hand. Those family members and friends who knew Billy and his particular ways and his taste for elegance and luxury saw that he was demonstrating his love for Kick. Jean Lloyd, who now had a baby daughter, remembered Kick and Billy sitting up all night, ‘to talk and talk and talk’.4
After the by-election Kick tried to find a way to marry Billy without losing her immortal soul. They went back and forth over the arguments and possibilities, trying to find a solution. Who would make the ultimate sacrifice? That February, Kick wrote to her family to tell them that the Duke had given her a ‘lovely old leather book’ for her twenty-fourth birthday. The Duchess insisted that she had had nothing to do with it, and when Kick opened it, she saw that it was the Book of Common Prayer. She laughed and thanked him for it. But she knew what the symbolic present meant. The Duchess and Kick had a long talk about the ‘situation’ and Billy’s mother said, ‘It’s a shame because you are both so good and it would please everyone so much.’ Kick begged her parents, ‘Please try and discover loopholes, although I keep feeling that the particular parties involved would make any compromise impossible. The Catholics would say it would give scandal. This situation, Daddy, is a stickler.’5
Kick always thought that her father could find a way. The plan now was to get a special dispensation. Bishop Mathew had told Kick that the process would put the Anglican Church in a very difficult position and that it would be better to wait until after they were married.
The Catholic Church’s 1917 Code of Canon Law prohibited marriage between a Catholic and non-Catholic unless there was a dispensation, which would require the Catholic to assure the priest that there was no danger of apostasy, and that any children wo
uld be brought up in the Catholic faith. The non-Catholic would have to be catechized on the nature of marriage in Catholic theology. Would Billy and his family consent to this? The arguments went back and forth, back and forth to no avail.
The Kennedy family had a codename for the ‘situation’ – Agnes and Hartie (Agnes being Kick’s middle name, and Hartie for Hartington). Rose wrote to her daughter in late February 1944: ‘There is no news about Agnes and Hartie . . . frankly I do not seem to think that Dad can do anything. He feels terribly sympathetic and so do I and I only wish we could offer some suggestions: When both people have been handed something all their lives, how ironic it is that they can not have what they most want.’6 There were numerous transatlantic telephone calls, letters and cables. ‘Enough material’, Rose later observed, ‘for a novel’. As she said, it would have been a ‘marriage made in Heaven’ except for the special and ironic circumstance of religious loyalties.7
Throughout the crisis Kick went frequently to church, taking Holy Communion whenever she could, as if she were making the most of it while she was still allowed. Rose wrote to say, ‘do not be exhausting yourself and running your little legs off going to Church as your first duty is to your job . . . We had a letter from someone in Boston whose third cousin watches you go to Communion frequently, so the news has been carried across the waters.’ Joe continued to tell his daughter that anything she did was all right by him, that it was hers and Billy’s decision, and all the rest could ‘go jump in the lake’.8 Rose was the one to apply moral pressure: ‘I understand perfectly the terrific responsibilities and the disappointment of it all.’9